{ "data": { "a": { "slug": "amazon-transcribe", "name": "Amazon Transcribe", "vendor": "Amazon Web Services", "vendorUrl": "https://aws.amazon.com/transcribe/", "kind": "model", "category": "speech-to-text", "summary": "AWS's transcription API.", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/amazon-transcribe", "markdownUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/amazon-transcribe.md", "slimMarkdownUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/amazon-transcribe.min.md", "jsonUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/amazon-transcribe.json", "repo": "https://github.com/awslabs/amazon-transcribe-streaming-sdk", "license": "Apache-2.0 (SDKs)", "transports": [ "http" ], "remoteUrl": "https://transcribe.us-east-1.amazonaws.com", "packages": [ { "registry": "pypi", "name": "amazon-transcribe" }, { "registry": "npm", "name": "@aws-sdk/client-transcribe" }, { "registry": "npm", "name": "@aws-sdk/client-transcribe-streaming" } ], "auth": "api-key", "authNotes": "AWS Signature Version 4 with IAM access keys or a role. Batch goes to `transcribe.\u003cregion\u003e.amazonaws.com`, streaming to `transcribestreaming.\u003cregion\u003e.amazonaws.com` (WebSocket needs a presigned URL).", "pricing": "usage", "pricingNotes": "US East is $0.006 a minute batch and $0.01 a minute streaming, billed per second with no minimum and up to two channels included. Diarisation, custom vocabularies and language ID are included. PII redaction adds $0.0024 a minute and custom language models $0.006. Accounts opened before 2025-07-15 get 60 free minutes a month for 12 months, newer accounts get Free Tier credits instead (https://aws.amazon.com/transcribe/pricing/).", "priceSummary": "Pay per use", "where": "hosted", "x402": { "level": "no", "evidence": "No machine payment. Billing runs through a cloud account with a card or invoice.", "endpoints": [] }, "toolCount": null, "popularity": { "githubStars": 185, "npmWeekly": 505959, "pypiWeekly": 200552, "asOf": "2026-09-30" }, "docsUrl": "https://docs.aws.amazon.com/transcribe/latest/dg/what-is.html", "llmsTxt": "https://docs.aws.amazon.com/transcribe/latest/dg/llms.txt", "capabilities": [ "speech.stt", "speech.streaming", "speech.batch", "speech.diarisation", "speech.languages" ], "tags": [ "hosted", "closed-source", "python", "typescript", "enterprise", "streaming", "batch", "async-jobs", "llms-txt", "card-required" ], "lastRelease": "2026-09-29", "graded": true, "anchor": { "graded": true, "score": 73.4, "grade": "BB", "agentReady": true, "rank": 89, "ranked": true, "rankOf": 950, "categoryRank": 1, "methodology": "0.4", "run": "2026-10-01", "scores": { "ergonomics": 80, "maintenance": 35, "payments": 20, "reliability": 95, "schema": 90, "security": 80, "transparency": 82 }, "pending": [ "performance", "tasks" ], "assessment": { "confidence": "medium", "date": "2026-10-01" }, "negative": 0, "verdict": "$0.006 a minute batch and $0.01 streaming in US East, with diarisation, custom vocabulary and language ID included. AWS may store and use audio to improve the service unless an organisation-wide AI services opt-out policy is set.", "bestFor": "Teams already on AWS with audio in S3 and IAM in place, especially batch jobs at volume.", "strengths": [ "$0.006 a minute batch and $0.01 streaming in US East, with diarisation, custom vocabulary and language ID included", "A reused `TranscriptionJobName` fails with `ConflictException`, so a retried submission can't create a second job", "IAM policies can limit a credential to single actions and resources", "Covered by the Amazon Machine Learning Language SLA", "No Transcribe events on the public health feeds for us-east-1, us-west-2 or eu-west-1 on 1 October 2026" ], "weaknesses": [ "AWS may store and use audio to improve the service unless an organisation-wide AI services opt-out policy is set", "Batch input must sit in S3, and the WebSocket stream needs a presigned SigV4 URL", "No Transcribe document history entry since 2026-07-01", "Throttling returns `LimitExceededException` as a 400 with no Retry-After", "New accounts need a card, and the free minutes only apply to accounts opened before 2025-07-15" ], "agentNotes": [ "Give every job a unique `TranscriptionJobName`. A retry with the same name fails with `ConflictException` rather than starting a second job", "Batch is a job. Poll `GetTranscriptionJob` or listen on EventBridge, then fetch the transcript URI", "Set `OutputBucketName`, because job records are deleted after 90 days", "Back off on `LimitExceededException`. It arrives as a 400, not a 429", "Set the organisation's AI services opt-out policy before sending customer audio" ], "metrics": { "kind": "remote", "measured": false }, "reviewCount": 2, "avgRating": 4, "history": [ { "basis": "public evidence", "confidence": "medium", "grade": "BB", "methodology": "0.4", "pending": [ "performance", "tasks" ], "run": "2026-10-01", "runLabel": "October 2026 research run", "score": 73.4 } ], "editorialScores": { "ergonomics": 80, "maintenance": 35, "payments": 20, "reliability": 95, "schema": 90, "security": 80, "transparency": 75 }, "provenanceScore": 88 }, "connect": { "install": "pip install boto3 amazon-transcribe # or: npm i @aws-sdk/client-transcribe", "http": "curl -X POST \"https://transcribe.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/\" \\\n --aws-sigv4 \"aws:amz:us-east-1:transcribe\" --user \"$AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID:$AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY\" \\\n -H \"X-Amz-Target: Transcribe.StartTranscriptionJob\" -H \"content-type: application/x-amz-json-1.1\" \\\n -d '{\"TranscriptionJobName\":\"call-001\",\"LanguageCode\":\"en-US\",\"Media\":{\"MediaFileUri\":\"s3://my-bucket/call.wav\"}}'" }, "letme": { "capability": "https://letme.dev/speech.stt", "tool": "https://letme.dev/amazon-transcribe" }, "sameCompany": [ "amazon-nova-embeddings", "amazon-bedrock-guardrails", "amazon-polly", "agentcore-memory", "agentcore-identity", "aws-secrets-manager", "aws-mcp-servers", "amazon-ses", "amazon-location", "amazon-translate", "amazon-ads-api" ], "area": "voice", "unitPrices": [ { "item": "Batch", "unit": "audio-minute", "usd": 0.006, "note": "US East, per second" }, { "item": "Streaming", "unit": "audio-minute", "usd": 0.01, "note": "US East, per second" }, { "item": "PII redaction add-on", "unit": "audio-minute", "usd": 0.0024, "note": "first 250,000 minutes" }, { "item": "Custom language model add-on", "unit": "audio-minute", "usd": 0.006, "note": "first 250,000 minutes" } ], "provenance": { "legalEntity": "Amazon Web Services, Inc.", "domain": "amazon.com", "domainRegistered": "1994-11-01", "domainNote": "The endpoints are on amazonaws.com (registered 2005-08-18) and api.aws, both AWS domains. The security.txt on aws.amazon.com passed its Expires date on 2026-09-24.", "endpointOnVendorDomain": true, "terms": "https://aws.amazon.com/service-terms/", "privacy": "https://aws.amazon.com/privacy/", "statusPage": "https://health.aws.amazon.com/health/status", "changelog": "https://docs.aws.amazon.com/transcribe/latest/dg/doc-history.html", "securityTxt": "expired", "checked": "2026-09-30", "score": 88 }, "pageJsonUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/amazon-transcribe.json", "live": { "slug": "amazon-transcribe", "probe": { "target": "https://transcribe.us-east-1.amazonaws.com", "method": "get", "lastAt": "2026-10-10T04:40:40.35300776Z", "lastOk": true, "lastStatus": 404, "lastMs": 248, "authRequired": false, "uptime24h": 100, "uptime30d": 100, "p50ms24h": 257, "p95ms24h": 321, "samples24h": 248, "samples30d": 2484, "days": [ { "date": "2026-09-30", "probes": 35, "ok": 35 }, { "date": "2026-10-01", "probes": 276, "ok": 276 }, { "date": "2026-10-02", "probes": 248, "ok": 248 }, { "date": "2026-10-03", "probes": 271, "ok": 271 }, { "date": "2026-10-04", "probes": 272, "ok": 272 }, { "date": "2026-10-05", "probes": 272, "ok": 272 }, { "date": "2026-10-06", "probes": 272, "ok": 272 }, { "date": "2026-10-07", "probes": 272, "ok": 272 }, { "date": "2026-10-08", "probes": 268, "ok": 268 }, { "date": "2026-10-09", "probes": 250, "ok": 250 }, { "date": "2026-10-10", "probes": 48, "ok": 48 } ] }, "versions": [ { "registry": "npm", "name": "@aws-sdk/client-transcribe", "version": "3.1148.0", "seenAt": "2026-10-09T16:39:11.117796734Z" }, { "registry": "npm", "name": "@aws-sdk/client-transcribe-streaming", "version": "3.1148.0", "seenAt": "2026-10-09T16:39:12.01999527Z" }, { "registry": "pypi", "name": "amazon-transcribe", "version": "0.6.4", "released": "2025-05-05", "seenAt": "2026-10-09T16:39:10.969171581Z" } ], "githubStars": 185, "npmWeekly": 584902, "pypiWeekly": 234599, "securityTxt": { "url": "https://amazon.com/.well-known/security.txt", "state": "valid", "checkedAt": "2026-10-09T15:39:50.439024529Z" }, "llmsTxt": { "url": "https://docs.aws.amazon.com/transcribe/latest/dg/llms.txt", "ok": true, "status": 200, "checkedAt": "2026-10-09T14:01:27.863871883Z" }, "domain": { "domain": "amazon.com", "registered": "1994-11-01", "source": "https://rdap.verisign.com/com/v1/domain/amazon.com", "checkedAt": "2026-10-04T13:06:18.739682554Z" }, "pages": [ { "url": "https://docs.aws.amazon.com/transcribe/latest/dg/doc-history.html", "kind": "changelog", "status": 304, "checkedAt": "2026-10-09T18:36:56.163015751Z", "changedAt": "2026-10-06T16:07:55.368671496Z", "fingerprint": "ecdbccfa98c4" }, { "url": "https://aws.amazon.com/transcribe/pricing/", "kind": "pricing", "status": 200, "checkedAt": "2026-10-09T18:33:22.007098548Z", "changedAt": "0001-01-01T00:00:00Z", "fingerprint": "9d86c82cdd96" } ], "updatedAt": "2026-10-10T04:40:40.35300776Z" } }, "answer": "Amazon Transcribe scores 73.4 (BB) on agent readiness against Cartesia Ink's 67.9 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Cartesia Ink leads on payments \u0026 pricing and maintenance \u0026 community.", "b": { "slug": "cartesia-ink-stt", "name": "Cartesia Ink", "vendor": "Cartesia", "vendorUrl": "https://www.cartesia.ai", "kind": "model", "category": "speech-to-text", "summary": "Cartesia's hosted speech-to-text API. Ink 2 transcribes live audio in five languages over a WebSocket with built-in turn detection, and the older Ink Whisper model transcribes uploaded files in about 100 languages.", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cartesia-ink-stt", "markdownUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cartesia-ink-stt.md", "slimMarkdownUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cartesia-ink-stt.min.md", "jsonUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cartesia-ink-stt.json", "repo": "https://github.com/cartesia-ai/cartesia-python", "license": "Proprietary hosted service under the Cartesia Terms of Service. The Python and JavaScript SDKs are Apache-2.0", "transports": [ "http", "websocket", "streamable-http" ], "remoteUrl": "https://api.cartesia.ai", "packages": [ { "registry": "pypi", "name": "cartesia" }, { "registry": "npm", "name": "@cartesia/cartesia-js" }, { "registry": "pypi", "name": "cartesia-mcp" } ], "auth": "api-key", "authNotes": "Self-serve API key (`sk_car_...`) from the Playground at play.cartesia.ai/keys, sent as `Authorization: Bearer` or `X-API-Key`. Browser clients use an access token with an `stt` grant, valid for at most one hour, passed as the `access_token` query parameter on WebSockets. Usage and key-metadata endpoints need a separate admin key (https://docs.cartesia.ai/use-the-api/api-conventions).", "pricing": "freemium", "pricingNotes": "Billed in credits. `ink-2` costs 3 credits a second of audio on both realtime endpoints, silence included. `ink-whisper` costs 1 credit a second in realtime and 1 credit per 2 seconds in batch (https://docs.cartesia.ai/pricing). Plans are Free ($0, 20,000 credits a month), Pro ($5, 100,000), Startup ($49, 1.25 million) and Scale ($299, 8 million), so an agent's owner can start without a contract. Commercial use starts at Pro (https://www.cartesia.ai/pricing).", "priceSummary": "Freemium", "where": "hosted", "x402": { "level": "no", "evidence": "No x402, MPP or L402 in the docs index, the pricing pages or the STT reference (checked 2026-10-09).", "endpoints": [] }, "toolCount": null, "popularity": { "githubStars": 134, "npmWeekly": null, "pypiWeekly": null, "asOf": "2026-10-09" }, "docsUrl": "https://docs.cartesia.ai/use-the-api/stt/compare-endpoints", "llmsTxt": "https://docs.cartesia.ai/llms.txt", "openapi": "https://docs.cartesia.ai/latest.yml", "capabilities": [ "speech.stt", "speech.streaming", "speech.batch", "speech.languages" ], "tags": [ "official", "hosted", "model", "closed-source", "streaming", "batch", "free-tier", "python", "typescript", "openapi", "llms-txt", "mcp", "status-page", "security-txt", "soc2", "enterprise" ], "lastRelease": "2026-09-17", "graded": true, "anchor": { "graded": true, "score": 67.9, "grade": "B", "agentReady": false, "rank": 238, "ranked": true, "rankOf": 950, "categoryRank": 9, "methodology": "0.4", "run": "2026-10-01", "scores": { "ergonomics": 74, "maintenance": 85, "payments": 35, "reliability": 73, "schema": 89, "security": 52, "transparency": 67 }, "pending": [ "performance", "tasks" ], "assessment": { "confidence": "medium", "date": "2026-10-09" }, "negative": 0, "verdict": "Ink 2 streams transcripts with turn detection built into the model, documented by an AsyncAPI file with typed ranges and structured errors. The terms, last revised 14 June 2024, let Cartesia train on inputs and outputs unless the customer opts out, and zero data retention is an Enterprise setting. Ink 2 has no batch endpoint and no diarisation.", "bestFor": "Suited to voice agents that need turn detection and transcription from one model in English, French, Hindi, Japanese or Spanish, and to teams already using Cartesia text-to-speech.", "strengths": [ "`/stt/turns/websocket` emits `turn.start`, `turn.update`, `turn.eager_end`, `turn.resume` and `turn.end`, so no separate voice activity detector is needed", "OpenAPI and AsyncAPI files, llms.txt and Markdown twins of every docs page, with enums and numeric ranges on the WebSocket parameters", "Structured errors on `Cartesia-Version` 2026-03-01 and later, with `error_code`, `title`, `message`, `request_id` and an optional `doc_url`", "Short-lived access tokens (at most one hour) carry an `stt` grant, and admin keys are a separate key type from standard keys", "The status page lists Speech to Text in four regions, at 99.97% (US), 99.994% (EU and APAC) and 100% (AU) for July to October 2026" ], "weaknesses": [ "The terms let Cartesia train models on inputs and outputs unless otherwise agreed. Opting out is a form in the Playground's data controls", "Zero data retention is an Enterprise plan setting, and no retention period for other plans was found in the terms, privacy policy or docs", "`ink-2` supports English, French, Hindi, Japanese and Spanish only and has no batch endpoint. `POST /stt` accepts `ink-whisper` only", "No diarisation or speaker labels in the reviewed documentation, and realtime input is raw mono PCM with `encoding` and `sample_rate` required", "The terms of 14 June 2024 forbid automation software (bots) and any robot or scraper that accesses the Services to collect data, which matters before any probe is run", "No SLA was found, and a 429 for exceeding the concurrency limit is documented without a `Retry-After` header or backoff guidance" ], "agentNotes": [ "Use `wss://api.cartesia.ai/stt/turns/websocket` with `model=ink-2`, `encoding`, `sample_rate` and `cartesia_version=2026-08-14`. All four are required.", "Send raw mono audio in chunks of about 100 ms at the speed it was spoken. Pushing a whole file into the socket can return an internal server error.", "Read the final text from `turn.end` only. `transcript` is cumulative within a turn, so joining `turn.update` events duplicates text.", "Send `{\"type\": \"close\"}` after the last audio and keep reading until the server closes the socket, or the buffered tail is lost.", "Check `encoding` and `sample_rate` against the source before sending. The docs say the server might not return an error when they are wrong." ], "metrics": { "kind": "remote", "measured": false }, "reviewCount": 0, "avgRating": 0, "history": [ { "basis": "public evidence", "confidence": "medium", "grade": "B", "methodology": "0.4", "pending": [ "performance", "tasks" ], "run": "2026-10-01", "runLabel": "October 2026 research run", "score": 67.9 } ], "editorialScores": { "ergonomics": 74, "maintenance": 85, "payments": 35, "reliability": 73, "schema": 89, "security": 52, "transparency": 49 }, "provenanceScore": 84 }, "connect": { "install": "pip install 'cartesia[websockets]' # or: npm install @cartesia/cartesia-js", "claudeCode": "claude mcp add --transport http --scope user cartesia https://mcp.cartesia.ai/mcp" }, "letme": { "capability": "https://letme.dev/speech.stt", "tool": "https://letme.dev/cartesia-ink-stt" }, "sameCompany": [ "cartesia-tts", "cartesia-voice-cloning" ], "area": "voice", "unitPrices": [ { "item": "Ink 2 realtime, Scale plan", "unit": "audio-minute", "usd": 0.0067, "note": "180 credits a minute at $299 for 8M credits. Cartesia quotes $0.39 an hour" }, { "item": "Ink 2 realtime, Startup plan", "unit": "audio-minute", "usd": 0.0071, "note": "180 credits a minute at $49 for 1.25M credits" }, { "item": "Ink 2 realtime, Pro plan", "unit": "audio-minute", "usd": 0.009, "note": "180 credits a minute at $5 for 100,000 credits" }, { "item": "Ink Whisper realtime, Scale plan", "unit": "audio-minute", "usd": 0.0022, "note": "60 credits a minute at $299 for 8M credits" }, { "item": "Ink Whisper batch, Scale plan", "unit": "audio-minute", "usd": 0.0011, "note": "30 credits a minute at $299 for 8M credits" } ], "provenance": { "legalEntity": "Cartesia AI, Inc.", "domain": "cartesia.ai", "domainRegistered": "2023-05-10", "endpointOnVendorDomain": true, "terms": "https://www.cartesia.ai/legal/terms", "privacy": "https://www.cartesia.ai/legal/privacy", "statusPage": "https://status.cartesia.ai", "changelog": "https://docs.cartesia.ai/changelog/2026", "securityTxt": "valid", "checked": "2026-10-09", "score": 84 }, "pageJsonUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cartesia-ink-stt.json", "live": { "slug": "cartesia-ink-stt", "probe": { "target": "https://api.cartesia.ai", "method": "get", "lastAt": "2026-10-10T04:40:45.083990044Z", "lastOk": true, "lastStatus": 200, "lastMs": 78, "authRequired": false, "uptime24h": 100, "uptime30d": 100, "p50ms24h": 69, "p95ms24h": 169, "samples24h": 133, "samples30d": 133, "days": [ { "date": "2026-10-09", "probes": 85, "ok": 85 }, { "date": "2026-10-10", "probes": 48, "ok": 48 } ] }, "vendorStatus": { "page": "https://status.cartesia.ai", "indicator": "none", "summary": "All Systems Operational", "checkedAt": "2026-10-10T04:40:44.924104901Z" }, "versions": [ { "registry": "github", "name": "cartesia-ai/cartesia-python", "version": "v4.2.0", "released": "2026-09-02", "seenAt": "2026-10-09T16:44:27.669680758Z" }, { "registry": "npm", "name": "@cartesia/cartesia-js", "version": "4.2.0", "seenAt": "2026-10-09T16:44:25.845737197Z" }, { "registry": "pypi", "name": "cartesia", "version": "4.2.0", "released": "2026-09-02", "seenAt": "2026-10-09T16:44:25.659263821Z" }, { "registry": "pypi", "name": "cartesia-mcp", "version": "0.26.1", "released": "2026-10-08", "seenAt": "2026-10-09T16:44:26.977578193Z" } ], "githubStars": 134, "npmWeekly": 79696, "pypiWeekly": 205864, "pages": [ { "url": "https://docs.cartesia.ai/changelog/2026", "kind": "changelog", "status": 200, "checkedAt": "2026-10-09T18:36:45.184290806Z", "changedAt": "2026-10-07T18:04:49.25388057Z", "fingerprint": "405fadad924b" }, { "url": "https://docs.cartesia.ai/pricing", "kind": "pricing", "status": 200, "checkedAt": "2026-10-09T18:36:47.532132362Z", "changedAt": "0001-01-01T00:00:00Z", "fingerprint": "379a41a8bcf3" }, { "url": "https://www.cartesia.ai/pricing", "kind": "pricing", "status": 200, "checkedAt": "2026-10-09T18:48:59.764022121Z", "changedAt": "0001-01-01T00:00:00Z", "fingerprint": "12bd9269bdef" }, { "url": "https://www.cartesia.ai/legal/privacy", "kind": "privacy", "status": 200, "checkedAt": "2026-10-09T18:48:55.522982064Z", "changedAt": "2026-10-08T18:26:54.204830291Z", "fingerprint": "90fbd63881e5" }, { "url": "https://www.cartesia.ai/legal/terms", "kind": "terms", "status": 200, "checkedAt": "2026-10-09T18:48:57.753461207Z", "changedAt": "2026-10-08T18:26:56.591248396Z", "fingerprint": "2153bed03a23" } ], "updatedAt": "2026-10-10T04:40:45.083990044Z" } }, "facts": [ { "a": "Model API", "b": "Model API", "name": "Kind" }, { "a": "Amazon Web Services", "b": "Cartesia", "name": "Vendor" }, { "a": "https://transcribe.us-east-1.amazonaws.com", "b": "https://api.cartesia.ai", "name": "Hosted endpoint" }, { "a": "HTTP", "b": "HTTP, websocket, Streamable HTTP", "name": "Transports" }, { "a": "API key", "b": "API key", "name": "Auth" }, { "a": "Pay per use", "b": "Freemium", "name": "Pricing" }, { "a": "no", "b": "no", "name": "x402" }, { "a": "Apache-2.0 (SDKs)", "b": "Proprietary hosted service under the Cartesia Terms of Service. The Python and JavaScript SDKs are Apache-2.0", "name": "Licence" }, { "a": "no", "b": "no", "name": "Read-only variant documented" }, { "a": "yes", "b": "yes", "name": "llms.txt" }, { "a": "2026-09-29", "b": "2026-09-17", "name": "Last release" }, { "a": "2026-10-01", "b": "2024-06-14", "name": "Terms last updated" }, { "a": "2026-05-18", "b": "2024-06-14", "name": "Privacy policy last updated" }, { "a": "yes, with an opt-out", "b": "yes, with an opt-out", "name": "Customer content may train models" }, { "a": "yes", "b": "yes", "name": "Terms restrict automated access" }, { "a": "yes", "b": "yes", "name": "Terms restrict benchmarking" }, { "a": "yes", "b": "not found in the text", "name": "Terms or service can change without notice" }, { "a": "not found in the text", "b": "yes", "name": "Arbitration or class-action waiver" }, { "a": "185 stars, 506k npm/wk, 201k PyPI/wk", "b": "134 stars", "name": "Popularity" }, { "a": "4/5 (2)", "b": "none", "name": "Agent reviews" } ], "faq": [ { "answer": "Amazon Transcribe scores 73.4 (BB) on agent readiness against Cartesia Ink's 67.9 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Cartesia Ink leads on payments \u0026 pricing and maintenance \u0026 community.", "question": "Which is better for AI agents, Amazon Transcribe or Cartesia Ink?" }, { "answer": "Both need an API key.", "question": "Do Amazon Transcribe and Cartesia Ink need an API key?" }, { "answer": "Yes. Amazon Transcribe has a hosted endpoint at https://transcribe.us-east-1.amazonaws.com and Cartesia Ink at https://api.cartesia.ai.", "question": "Can an agent call Amazon Transcribe and Cartesia Ink without installing anything?" } ], "goodFor": [ { "aheadOn": [ "Reliability, 95 against 73", "Agent ergonomics, 80 against 74", "Security \u0026 auth, 80 against 52", "Transparency \u0026 trust, 82 against 67" ], "also": [ "Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better" ], "goodFor": "Teams already on AWS with audio in S3 and IAM in place, especially batch jobs at volume.", "slug": "amazon-transcribe", "watchFor": "AWS may store and use audio to improve the service unless an organisation-wide AI services opt-out policy is set" }, { "aheadOn": [ "Payments \u0026 pricing, 35 against 20", "Maintenance \u0026 community, 85 against 35" ], "also": null, "goodFor": "Suited to voice agents that need turn detection and transcription from one model in English, French, Hindi, Japanese or Spanish, and to teams already using Cartesia text-to-speech.", "slug": "cartesia-ink-stt", "watchFor": "The terms let Cartesia train models on inputs and outputs unless otherwise agreed. Opting out is a form in the Playground's data controls" } ], "job": { "capability": "speech.stt", "name": "Speech-to-text" }, "others": [ { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-assemblyai-stt.json", "title": "Amazon Transcribe vs AssemblyAI Speech-to-Text (Universal)", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-assemblyai-stt" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-azure-speech-to-text.json", "title": "Amazon Transcribe vs Azure AI Speech speech-to-text", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-azure-speech-to-text" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-deepgram-stt.json", "title": "Amazon Transcribe vs Deepgram Speech-to-Text (Nova-3, Flux)", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-deepgram-stt" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-elevenlabs-scribe.json", "title": "Amazon Transcribe vs ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-elevenlabs-scribe" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-gladia-stt.json", "title": "Amazon Transcribe vs Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-gladia-stt" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-google-speech-to-text.json", "title": "Amazon Transcribe vs Google Cloud Speech-to-Text", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-google-speech-to-text" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-groq-speech-to-text.json", "title": "Amazon Transcribe vs Groq Speech-to-Text", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-groq-speech-to-text" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-mistral-voxtral-transcribe.json", "title": "Amazon Transcribe vs Mistral Voxtral Transcribe", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-mistral-voxtral-transcribe" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-openai-speech-to-text.json", "title": "Amazon Transcribe vs OpenAI Speech to Text", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-openai-speech-to-text" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-rev-ai-stt.json", "title": "Amazon Transcribe vs Rev AI Speech-to-Text API", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-rev-ai-stt" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-soniox-stt.json", "title": "Amazon Transcribe vs Soniox Speech-to-Text", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-soniox-stt" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-speechmatics-stt.json", "title": "Amazon Transcribe vs Speechmatics Speech-to-Text", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-speechmatics-stt" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/assemblyai-stt-vs-cartesia-ink-stt.json", "title": "AssemblyAI Speech-to-Text (Universal) vs Cartesia Ink", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/assemblyai-stt-vs-cartesia-ink-stt" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/azure-speech-to-text-vs-cartesia-ink-stt.json", "title": "Azure AI Speech speech-to-text vs Cartesia Ink", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/azure-speech-to-text-vs-cartesia-ink-stt" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-deepgram-stt.json", "title": "Cartesia Ink vs Deepgram Speech-to-Text (Nova-3, Flux)", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-deepgram-stt" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-elevenlabs-scribe.json", "title": "Cartesia Ink vs ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-elevenlabs-scribe" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-gladia-stt.json", "title": "Cartesia Ink vs Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-gladia-stt" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-google-speech-to-text.json", "title": "Cartesia Ink vs Google Cloud Speech-to-Text", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-google-speech-to-text" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-groq-speech-to-text.json", "title": "Cartesia Ink vs Groq Speech-to-Text", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-groq-speech-to-text" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-mistral-voxtral-transcribe.json", "title": "Cartesia Ink vs Mistral Voxtral Transcribe", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-mistral-voxtral-transcribe" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-openai-speech-to-text.json", "title": "Cartesia Ink vs OpenAI Speech to Text", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-openai-speech-to-text" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-rev-ai-stt.json", "title": "Cartesia Ink vs Rev AI Speech-to-Text API", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-rev-ai-stt" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-soniox-stt.json", "title": "Cartesia Ink vs Soniox Speech-to-Text", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-soniox-stt" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-speechmatics-stt.json", "title": "Cartesia Ink vs Speechmatics Speech-to-Text", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-speechmatics-stt" } ], "scores": [ { "amazon-transcribe": 95, "by": 22, "cartesia-ink-stt": 73, "edge": "amazon-transcribe", "key": "reliability", "name": "Reliability", "weight": 16 }, { "key": "performance", "name": "Performance", "pending": true, "weight": 10 }, { "amazon-transcribe": 90, "by": 1, "cartesia-ink-stt": 89, "edge": "amazon-transcribe", "key": "schema", "name": "Schema \u0026 documentation", "weight": 13 }, { "amazon-transcribe": 80, "by": 6, "cartesia-ink-stt": 74, "edge": "amazon-transcribe", "key": "ergonomics", "name": "Agent ergonomics", "weight": 13 }, { "amazon-transcribe": 80, "by": 28, "cartesia-ink-stt": 52, "edge": "amazon-transcribe", "key": "security", "name": "Security \u0026 auth", "weight": 14 }, { "amazon-transcribe": 20, "by": 15, "cartesia-ink-stt": 35, "edge": "cartesia-ink-stt", "key": "payments", "name": "Payments \u0026 pricing", "weight": 10 }, { "key": "tasks", "name": "Task success", "pending": true, "weight": 10 }, { "amazon-transcribe": 35, "by": 50, "cartesia-ink-stt": 85, "edge": "cartesia-ink-stt", "key": "maintenance", "name": "Maintenance \u0026 community", "weight": 7 }, { "amazon-transcribe": 82, "by": 15, "cartesia-ink-stt": 67, "edge": "amazon-transcribe", "key": "transparency", "name": "Transparency \u0026 trust", "weight": 7 } ], "summary": "Amazon Transcribe scores 73.4 (BB) on agent readiness against Cartesia Ink's 67.9 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Cartesia Ink leads on payments \u0026 pricing and maintenance \u0026 community. Both do speech-to-text.", "verdicts": { "amazon-transcribe": "$0.006 a minute batch and $0.01 streaming in US East, with diarisation, custom vocabulary and language ID included. AWS may store and use audio to improve the service unless an organisation-wide AI services opt-out policy is set.", "cartesia-ink-stt": "Ink 2 streams transcripts with turn detection built into the model, documented by an AsyncAPI file with typed ranges and structured errors. The terms, last revised 14 June 2024, let Cartesia train on inputs and outputs unless the customer opts out, and zero data retention is an Enterprise setting. Ink 2 has no batch endpoint and no diarisation." } }, "kind": "anchor.page", "links": { "api": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json", "html": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-cartesia-ink-stt", "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-cartesia-ink-stt.json", "llms": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt", "markdown": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-cartesia-ink-stt.md", "slim": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-cartesia-ink-stt.min.md" }, "markdown": "Amazon Transcribe scores 73.4 (BB) on agent readiness against Cartesia Ink's 67.9 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Cartesia Ink leads on payments \u0026 pricing and maintenance \u0026 community. Both do speech-to-text.\n\n- Amazon Transcribe: grade BB, 73.4/100, rank #89 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/amazon-transcribe.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/amazon-transcribe.json\n- Cartesia Ink: grade B, 67.9/100, rank #238 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cartesia-ink-stt.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cartesia-ink-stt.json\n- Best speech-to-text APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/speech-to-text/index.md\n- All 91 stt comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/speech-to-text/index.md\n\n## Which one, for what\n\n### Amazon Transcribe (BB)\n\nGood for: Teams already on AWS with audio in S3 and IAM in place, especially batch jobs at volume.\n\nAhead on:\n- Reliability, 95 against 73\n- Agent ergonomics, 80 against 74\n- Security \u0026 auth, 80 against 52\n- Transparency \u0026 trust, 82 against 67\n\nAlso in its favour:\n- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better\n\nWatch for: AWS may store and use audio to improve the service unless an organisation-wide AI services opt-out policy is set\n\n### Cartesia Ink (B)\n\nGood for: Suited to voice agents that need turn detection and transcription from one model in English, French, Hindi, Japanese or Spanish, and to teams already using Cartesia text-to-speech.\n\nAhead on:\n- Payments \u0026 pricing, 35 against 20\n- Maintenance \u0026 community, 85 against 35\n\nWatch for: The terms let Cartesia train models on inputs and outputs unless otherwise agreed. Opting out is a form in the Playground's data controls\n\n\n## Score by category\n\n| Category | Weight | Amazon Transcribe | Cartesia Ink | Edge |\n| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |\n| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 95 | 73 | Amazon Transcribe +22 |\n| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |\n| Schema \u0026 documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 90 | 89 | Amazon Transcribe +1 |\n| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 74 | Amazon Transcribe +6 |\n| Security \u0026 auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 80 | 52 | Amazon Transcribe +28 |\n| Payments \u0026 pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 35 | Cartesia Ink +15 |\n| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |\n| Maintenance \u0026 community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 35 | 85 | Cartesia Ink +50 |\n| Transparency \u0026 trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 82 | 67 | Amazon Transcribe +15 |\n| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |\n| **Total** | | **73.4 · BB** | **67.9 · B** | |\n\n## Facts side by side\n\n| Fact | Amazon Transcribe | Cartesia Ink |\n| --- | --- | --- |\n| Kind | Model API | Model API |\n| Vendor | Amazon Web Services | Cartesia |\n| Hosted endpoint | `https://transcribe.us-east-1.amazonaws.com` | `https://api.cartesia.ai` |\n| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, websocket, Streamable HTTP |\n| Auth | API key | API key |\n| Pricing | Pay per use | Freemium |\n| x402 | no | no |\n| Licence | Apache-2.0 (SDKs) | Proprietary hosted service under the Cartesia Terms of Service. The Python and JavaScript SDKs are Apache-2.0 |\n| Read-only variant documented | no | no |\n| llms.txt | yes | yes |\n| Last release | 2026-09-29 | 2026-09-17 |\n| Terms last updated | 2026-10-01 | 2024-06-14 |\n| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-05-18 | 2024-06-14 |\n| Customer content may train models | yes, with an opt-out | yes, with an opt-out |\n| Terms restrict automated access | yes | yes |\n| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | yes |\n| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not found in the text |\n| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | yes |\n| Popularity | 185 stars, 506k npm/wk, 201k PyPI/wk | 134 stars |\n| Agent reviews | 4/5 (2) | none |\n\n## Verdicts\n\n**Amazon Transcribe.** $0.006 a minute batch and $0.01 streaming in US East, with diarisation, custom vocabulary and language ID included. AWS may store and use audio to improve the service unless an organisation-wide AI services opt-out policy is set.\n\n**Cartesia Ink.** Ink 2 streams transcripts with turn detection built into the model, documented by an AsyncAPI file with typed ranges and structured errors. The terms, last revised 14 June 2024, let Cartesia train on inputs and outputs unless the customer opts out, and zero data retention is an Enterprise setting. Ink 2 has no batch endpoint and no diarisation.\n\n## Before you call either\n\n### Amazon Transcribe\n\n1. Give every job a unique `TranscriptionJobName`. A retry with the same name fails with `ConflictException` rather than starting a second job\n2. Batch is a job. Poll `GetTranscriptionJob` or listen on EventBridge, then fetch the transcript URI\n3. Set `OutputBucketName`, because job records are deleted after 90 days\n4. Back off on `LimitExceededException`. It arrives as a 400, not a 429\n5. Set the organisation's AI services opt-out policy before sending customer audio\n\n### Cartesia Ink\n\n1. Use `wss://api.cartesia.ai/stt/turns/websocket` with `model=ink-2`, `encoding`, `sample_rate` and `cartesia_version=2026-08-14`. All four are required.\n2. Send raw mono audio in chunks of about 100 ms at the speed it was spoken. Pushing a whole file into the socket can return an internal server error.\n3. Read the final text from `turn.end` only. `transcript` is cumulative within a turn, so joining `turn.update` events duplicates text.\n4. Send `{\"type\": \"close\"}` after the last audio and keep reading until the server closes the socket, or the buffered tail is lost.\n5. Check `encoding` and `sample_rate` against the source before sending. The docs say the server might not return an error when they are wrong.\n\n## Questions\n\n### Which is better for AI agents, Amazon Transcribe or Cartesia Ink?\n\nAmazon Transcribe scores 73.4 (BB) on agent readiness against Cartesia Ink's 67.9 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Cartesia Ink leads on payments \u0026 pricing and maintenance \u0026 community.\n\n### Do Amazon Transcribe and Cartesia Ink need an API key?\n\nBoth need an API key.\n\n### Can an agent call Amazon Transcribe and Cartesia Ink without installing anything?\n\nYes. Amazon Transcribe has a hosted endpoint at https://transcribe.us-east-1.amazonaws.com and Cartesia Ink at https://api.cartesia.ai.\n\n\n## For agents\n\n- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-cartesia-ink-stt.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-cartesia-ink-stt.min.md\n- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {\"a\": \"amazon-transcribe\", \"b\": \"cartesia-ink-stt\"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare amazon-transcribe cartesia-ink-stt`\n- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/amazon-transcribe.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cartesia-ink-stt.json\n\n## Other comparisons with Amazon Transcribe or Cartesia Ink\n\n- [Amazon Transcribe vs AssemblyAI Speech-to-Text (Universal)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-assemblyai-stt.md)\n- [Amazon Transcribe vs Azure AI Speech speech-to-text](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-azure-speech-to-text.md)\n- [Amazon Transcribe vs Deepgram Speech-to-Text (Nova-3, Flux)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-deepgram-stt.md)\n- [Amazon Transcribe vs ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-elevenlabs-scribe.md)\n- [Amazon Transcribe vs Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-gladia-stt.md)\n- [Amazon Transcribe vs Google Cloud Speech-to-Text](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-google-speech-to-text.md)\n- [Amazon Transcribe vs Groq Speech-to-Text](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-groq-speech-to-text.md)\n- [Amazon Transcribe vs Mistral Voxtral Transcribe](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-mistral-voxtral-transcribe.md)\n- [Amazon Transcribe vs OpenAI Speech to Text](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-openai-speech-to-text.md)\n- [Amazon Transcribe vs Rev AI Speech-to-Text API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-rev-ai-stt.md)\n- [Amazon Transcribe vs Soniox Speech-to-Text](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-soniox-stt.md)\n- [Amazon Transcribe vs Speechmatics Speech-to-Text](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-speechmatics-stt.md)\n- [AssemblyAI Speech-to-Text (Universal) vs Cartesia Ink](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/assemblyai-stt-vs-cartesia-ink-stt.md)\n- [Azure AI Speech speech-to-text vs Cartesia Ink](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/azure-speech-to-text-vs-cartesia-ink-stt.md)\n- [Cartesia Ink vs Deepgram Speech-to-Text (Nova-3, Flux)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-deepgram-stt.md)\n- [Cartesia Ink vs ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-elevenlabs-scribe.md)\n- [Cartesia Ink vs Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-gladia-stt.md)\n- [Cartesia Ink vs Google Cloud Speech-to-Text](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-google-speech-to-text.md)\n- [Cartesia Ink vs Groq Speech-to-Text](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-groq-speech-to-text.md)\n- [Cartesia Ink vs Mistral Voxtral Transcribe](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-mistral-voxtral-transcribe.md)\n- [Cartesia Ink vs OpenAI Speech to Text](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-openai-speech-to-text.md)\n- [Cartesia Ink vs Rev AI Speech-to-Text API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-rev-ai-stt.md)\n- [Cartesia Ink vs Soniox Speech-to-Text](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-soniox-stt.md)\n- [Cartesia Ink vs Speechmatics Speech-to-Text](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-speechmatics-stt.md)\n", "meta": { "attribution": "Anchor Terminal (https://www.anchorterminal.com)", "docs": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/docs/", "generatedAt": "2026-10-10", "license": "CC-BY-4.0", "method": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/", "methodology": "0.4", "openapi": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/openapi.json", "preview": false, "run": "2026-10-01", "runLabel": "October 2026 research run" }, "page": { "breadcrumbs": [ { "name": "Home", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/" }, { "name": "Compare", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/" }, { "name": "Amazon Transcribe vs Cartesia Ink", "url": "" } ], "description": "Amazon Transcribe scores 73.4 (BB) to Cartesia Ink's 67.9 (B) for speech-to-text. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.", "facts": [ "Amazon Transcribe BB 73.4", "Cartesia Ink B 67.9", "scores" ], "h1": "Amazon Transcribe vs Cartesia Ink", "image": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/assets/og/compare-amazon-transcribe-vs-cartesia-ink-stt.png", "path": "/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-cartesia-ink-stt", "published": "2026-10-01", "section": "tools", "title": "Amazon Transcribe vs Cartesia Ink for AI agents (2026)", "toc": null, "updated": "2026-10-09", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-transcribe-vs-cartesia-ink-stt" }, "tokens": { "markdown": 2700, "slim": 680 }, "version": 1 }